Meet Reality
by Googleeyes
Summary: A Mary Sue wannabe comes to Paris in search of adventure and ways to waste her father's money. She manages to survive all the way to the Opera House, but how long will her luck last?


A/N: For now this is a oneshot. If I get good reviews or decide to continue it, I may bring in some phangirls or otherwise add to the story. It will then be a series of oneshots, perhaps connected in some small way. I apologise for not including any actual French. I don't know it...yet. Anyway, on with the story.

* * *

Mary Anne Suethers was in a very good mood. Better than usual anyway, because, as we will all soon learn, Mary Anne Suethers is never in a bad mood. When you're the daughter of an extremely wealthy American inventor you have people for that.

Anyway, Mary Anne was in an unusually chipper mood due to the fact that she had just arrived in Paris. She had been looking forward to this trip for months. It was all part of her father's gift to her for her eighteenth birthday. He had let her choose somewhere, anywhere in the world, that she wanted to go even though he knew it was improper to let a young lady travel long distances unaccompanied, never mind the fact that she should be busy getting married sometime soon. Mary Anne had also forgotten this fact and decided she wanted to go to Paris.

She had always loved to sing and thought she was exceedingly good at it. She had gotten standing ovations from all of her father's equally wealthy friends. She had even gotten standing ovations from all the people who owed him money and had come to the house to pay it. For you see, after obtaining ridiculous amounts of money for his invention, Mary Anne's father had decided to become a tax collector. He found he loved demanding increasingly higher amounts of money from unsuspecting colonists. He had also invented a time machine.

And now we return to Mary Anne Suethers' arrival in Paris. She had heard of the world famous opera house and decided she wanted to audition to be their new Prima Donna. She had heard that both their most popular singers, La Carlotta and Christine Daae, had conveniently gone missing. There were rumours of a possible kidnapping involving a man called Roule and his Ingenious Plane, though they had yet to be proved. But we are not worrying about those rumours. We are now returning to Mary Anne and her audition.

She happily skipped through town, somehow managing to escape any and all criminals possibly looking for beautiful young girls, and found the opera rather quickly, which was really quite miraculous as this was her first trip abroad. She skipped right up to the door and knocked cheerfully. As she waited for it to be answered she vaguely wondered how a knock could be cheerful.

Fortunately, Mary Anne didn't have to strain her four brain cells for long. The door was opened by an elderly woman in a bonnet with an atrociously long and ragged feather. "Bonjour, Mademoiselle," she said, revealing a total of three teeth in her mouth. She then began to babble away in French while Mary Anne stared at her uncomprehendingly. She noticed that the feather on the woman's bonnet moved up and down as she spoke. Suddenly the woman stopped talking and looked expectantly at Mary Anne.

"Oh, um, hi." She replied awkwardly. "I'm Mary Anne Suethers and I'm here to audition to be your new Prima Donna."

The woman stared at her for a moment before understanding dawned in her eyes. "Oh, English. Wait here." She turned her back and disappeared into the opera house. Mary Anne waited patiently for the old woman to return. However, it was not the old woman who returned, but a young man who looked rather flustered on top of being hot and sweaty.

"What do you want?" he asked with a slightly less strong French accent.

"I'm here to audition to be your new Prima Donna," Mary Anne repeated.

"We do not need a new Prima Donna," he replied brusquely.

"Well I'd like to audition anyway."

The man sighed. "Very well. Follow me." He opened the door a bit wider and Mary Anne stepped in. He led her through the opera house and toward the foyer, talking the whole way. "You should not expect to get a part in an upcoming production. We have already cast our next one. Although you might get a part in the chorus."

Mary Anne stopped walking and stared at him indignantly. "I will settle for nothing less than the best."

The man shrugged. "Suit yourself." He opened a door and led her through the auditorium. There appeared to be a rehearsal going on. He walked over to a man who appeared to be the conductor and began talking to him rapidly in French. The conductor rolled his eyes and strolled over to Mary Anne.

He began talking to her, though she couldn't understand a word of it. When he had stopped, the other man translated. "He says you are to sing an aria or chorus part from the opera of your choice."

Mary Anne thought for a moment. "What if I don't know any arias?"

The man stared at her. "You do not know any arias and you want to perform?"

Mary Anne nodded. "I know some other songs, though. Oh, and what's your name?"

"My name is Sofiane." Sofiane turned to the conductor and asked him something. The conductor eyed Mary Anne strangely as he answered. Then Sofiane turned to face Mary Anne again. "You may sing something else."

Mary Anne smiled in what she hoped was a winning way and opened her mouth. Then she began to sing 'Think of Me' from Phantom of the Opera; after all, what better song to sing in the Paris Opera House? Mary Anne smiled internally as she recalled the delightful trip she had taken to the future during which she had seen the movie "The Phantom of the Opera". She considered herself well-versed in Opera House mythology, namely a certain spectre who she very much wished to meet. Mary Anne opened her eyes, wondering when she'd closed them in the first place, and noticed that Sofiane, the conductor, and everyone else in the room had shoved their fingers deep into their ears. With a slight expression of curiosity (because Mary Anne Suethers is never angry) she tapped Sofiane lightly on the shoulder.

"Why does everyone have their fingers in their ears? Do I get the part?" she asked him.

Sofiane grimaced. "No you do not get the part! You were…you were…"

"Wonderful? Amazing? Better than both La Carlotta and Christine put together?" Mary Anne substituted hopefully.

"Terrible!" Sofiane finished with a shudder. "Please do not attempt to sing opera again. We do need some dancers though. Can you dance?"

Mary Anne thought about it. It took so long Sofiane began to get bored. Finally she replied, "I'm not sure. But can I try?"

"As long as you do not hurt yourself."

"Awesome!" Mary Anne shouted. Sofiane gave her an odd look. "It's a term from the future," she explained. Then, without warming up or giving Sofiane a chance to give her another odd look, Mary Anne began to dance. She tried some of the modern dance moves she had seen in the future the other day.

"Stop! Stop!" Sofiane cried in the middle of Mary Anne's routine. "You look like a whore, doing those dance moves! That is most certainly not ballet!"

Mary Anne shrugged. "I never said I knew ballet."

"But we need ballerinas!"

"Oh. That's too bad. I guess you'll have to find some," she replied casually, inspecting her fingernails.

Sofiane threw his hands up in the air. "You are of no use. You may leave." He walked off, leaving Mary Anne alone.

"Hey, I'm all alone," she announced to thin air several minutes later, stating the obvious. The air rolled its eyes at her stupidity or lack of observational powers. "Now I can go find the Phantom. Cool!"

Mary Anne went off in search of her supposed future husband. Fortunately, especially since she had been going toward the roof instead of the cellars, Mary Anne didn't have far to look. She fell into one of the trap doors. She presently found herself in complete darkness. She rubbed her sore rump and tried to figure out where she was. It was so dark she couldn't tell…

Suddenly a light turned on somewhere and Mary Anne found herself to be in some sort of extremely large jungle. She looked around, trying to figure out how she had gotten to a jungle from the Paris Opera House, and noticed what looked like a noose on one of the trees. "Weird," she thought aloud. "Why would a noose be in a jungle?"

It was at this moment that the heat began to rise. At first Mary Anne didn't notice; but it soon became hard to ignore the fact that the jungle was now boiling hot. She was sweating all over her new dress. After a few minutes of the heat, Mary Anne began banging randomly on trees and soon realised that she was in some sort of room. She began beating on the walls and yelling out.

"It's really hot in here! Could you please let me out! I'm ruining my dress! It's getting even hotter in here! Why is it getting hotter? Let me out now!" she pleaded.

Meanwhile, Erik was sitting on the other side of the torture chamber walls, reading. He listened to the girl's muffled cried, trying to deduce which language she was speaking in. It couldn't be French, and it didn't sound like Italian or Spanish…

As Erik thought about this, Mary Anne was growing increasingly more frantic. "I need you to let me out now! It's so hot in here! Let me out!"

She soon figured out that she was gaining nothing but a sore throat with all the shouting and took refuge under a large tree, hoping it would shade her from the sun. But she was still hot. Mary Anne was beginning to go crazy with the heat. A couple times she thought she saw things in front of her that could not possibly be there in reality.

As Mary Anne slowly lost her senses, Erik figured out which language the girl was using. It was the language of the land of the Bretons: English. He knew little English, but decided to try to talk to her anyway. He walked up to the window of the torture chamber and shouted back at the girl.

"You want what?" he asked.

"I want to get out of the heat," she replied weakly.

"You are here why?"

"I was going to try out to be the new Prima Donna, but I couldn't sing opera. Then I tried to dance, but I couldn't do ballet either. So I went looking for the Phantom. Where is he?" Mary Anne answered.

Erik tried to piece together what the girl had said. She wanted something to do with heat. Or was it beat? He couldn't remember. He guessed it somehow related to the torture chamber. Then she had said something about a Prima Donna, opera, and ballet. He recognised those words. But what had been in between them? She had also said something about a phantom. That sounded similar to fantome. Oh! She had talking about him. He leaned toward the window again.

"I am le Fantome de l'Opera!" he proclaimed dramatically.

"Oh," Mary Anne replied. "Then could you let me out?"

Erik tried to figure out this statement as well. However, he couldn't. He gave up after a few minutes and returned to his book. She was just a stupid girl anyway. He certainly wouldn't care if she died.

For about five minutes, it seemed as if the girl had gotten up and began pacing. Then the noises stopped. The torture chamber was silent. Erik waited a few minutes, then went in to get the body and dispose of it. He knew of a nice storage cupboard that would work nicely.


End file.
